Even Worse

I know that there's some spin flying around that the Mets got rooked in the 9th inning by a bad call at 3rd base, and sure, if Tim McClelland is in a better position he probably calls Coghlan out, but the Mets did it to themselves last night and let's not try too hard to grasp at straws.

The team right now is abominable. I started to wind up for the kill yesterday, and I could continue down that path, but is it even worth it? It doesn't matter if they play 5 and a half hours and 15 innings, or 2 hours, 20 minutes and 9, the result is still the same. Starter pitches well, offense stands around with their thumbs up their asses, bullpen either blows the lead if they were fortunate enough to have one, or puts the game out of reach if they were behind. The ineptitude they've managed to display on these fronts has been impressive even for the Mets.

The reaction of the Marlins after these past two games should tell you everything you need to know. They're used to playing in front of about 30-40 people already, so you probably couldn't blame them for looking like they're slightly lulled to sleep. But then they sort of stumbled into a pair of victories here against the Mets and they don't seem to know what hit them. SNY showed a shot of Mike Redmond in the dugout after Lyon's wild pitch and he had this look on his face as if to say, "Hey, wait a minute...you mean we won!? How the hell did we do that?"

For once, I feel bad for poor Jeremy Hefner. I've cracked on him plenty and he certainly has been deserving of it most of the time, but give credit where credit is due because he pitched his heart out for 8 innings and made the Marlins look like the Marlins. And thanks to the fact that nobody could get him some runs, he's hung with the loss. It's easy to point fingers at Lyon or Anthony Recker, and sure, Recker gagged on a passed ball and didn't stop Lyon's wild pitch, and also made a questionable play on the Pierre bunt, but at the same time, Recker was the only Met to drive in a run. If not for him, the Mets don't have the 1-0 lead in the first place because nobody else hit.

Pitchers are a convenient scapegoat and certainly this bullpen has been pretty lousy this season, but I feel like I've spent the better part of the last decade complaining about how you can't win if you don't hit, and the Mets continue to prove this point game after miserable game. You could call up Zack Wheeler now, that's fine. I'm sure he'll be thrilled to be in the Majors, until he realizes that this bootleg team can't back him up and he loses every game 3-1.